Man, Greg Oden, why you gotta do a thing?

Promise. The excitement of the new “big three,” Aldridge, Roy, and Oden, lasted just three months before it hit its first bump. Well, maybe the opposite of a bump, as it involves the lack of cartilage more than anything else, and I don’t know if that’d categorize as a “bump” or a “dip.” I’ll check up on that.

I’m trying to invoke Jason Kidd, Amare Stoudemire, and Oden’s current teammate – Darius freaking Miles – trying to realize and say yes, you can come back from this with time and the right work ethic. Oden has the work ethic – now he just needs time. He just needs time. It was just a small part of the knee, and hey, there’s nothing else wrong! Nothing else. Nothing else. Nothing…

Nooooooooooooooooo whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. I think I’m officially wailing over this right now, like some goddamned widow. My first reaction was a jaw drop; the next was just sheer sadness. Writers, like The Oregonian’s John Canzano and the ever-famous Bethlehem Shoals, are musing on the ‘why’ behind reactions like my own, and I think the answer is two-fold.

One, I’m sad as HELL I won’t have the chance to see him play. If he returns for next season, there’s a very good chance I’m in Japan for his rookie year, and that sucks. But the other facet is this humanizes the kid even more. Going through such adversity (especially with the way I’d imagine he’ll go through it) makes him a more sympathetic character, especially because he is apologizing for the injury! Remarkable.

So I’ll go dry out the tear-soaked Oden jersey I picked up earlier in the summer and relax. If Amare Stoudemire can come back strong, and Jason Kidd can put up ridiculous numbers (averaging a triple-double in the first round of last year’s playoffs? Nuts!) then I think a kid who can’t even drink, with a minor version of this injury and a great work ethic, will come out fine.